Not to get technical, but isn’t what Frigg uses a Morningstar? In that its a big heavy mace-like bludgeon, but it clearly has large spikes studded throughout it. If it were ‘just’ a mace, it would have only blunt heads.

No, no…DO get technical, please.
The Mace was originally an improvement on the club. A smaller and denser head made for greater damage and impact By then, of course, people had swords and $**T, so why a mace? Well, b/c it’s really hard to cut through plate and chainmail (especially b/c the average soldier wasn’t carrying excaliber). Maces were cheap and could cause damage through heavy armor that would block stabs and cuts, and they were fairly durable too (kinda hard to shatter a solid bar of iron).
As with all things, people learned that you could kill people even easier with flanged maces, with spikes of metal allowing for greater penetration. So no, maces aren’t all blunt.

But yes, this club would be considered a morningstar, as it has large spikes rather than short flanges or nubs. It’s not the most impressive specimen when comparing length (there have been a few well over 7 feet long/tall)…however, the fact that it is made out of solid metal (quite unusual) is . That thing must weigh at least 20 pounds, and Frigg uses it as a one handed weapon (for comparison, even large claymores rarely make it past 6 pounds…and they’re two handed weapons).

This has been “Short Briefs on Medieval Weaponry: ‘Sup With Maces?” Tune in next time for our next segment, “Ancient Gamebreakers: The Longbow”.

More common were pole-hammers. These were used to knock mounted knights and soldiers from horseback.
Or for squishing heavily armored foot soldiers if you could hit them before they got in close.
Pole-maces or two handed mace were used similarly where you needed reach.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t maces (and swords, come to think of it) much older than heavy plate armor? So how does it make sense that their one advantage over swords was the ability to penetrate metal plates?

Or did they go out of style for a time, then come back in the late medieval or something?

Well, I haven’t really had much chance to test it, but I believe that swords are mostly just bludgeoning weapons anyway, for breaking bones. A thin but heavy edge is pretty good for that sort of thing. It would be far more likely to break your wrist than cut through it.
The mace, if you’ve got the strength to swing it, could probably break bones a lot easier. Better for shattering ribcages and skulls.
If may be simpler to make and maintain, but if you’ve made it out of metal, I doubt that a mace would be significantly easier.

At a Renaissance fair gone wrong, I watched four drunken “jousters” mess around with real weapons until a horse got hit with a flail (spiked ball on a chain) on the head. Lightly. There was no blood.

They had to stop the show. The horse fell down, then sat up like a dog, but didn’t even attempt to get back on all fours again. It just sat there waving its head in a dazed stupor. You can’t joust around a horse who won’t move.

Even without plate mail, heavy blunt instruments are excellent at disabling opponents. People wore helmets to war since antiquity, but if the guy to your left pulls the enemy’s shield down, one solid hit will turn his helmet into a bell and he’s done for.

They were usefull against opponents with Large, unflexible, flat shields, while curved shields minimize or negate the force. It was also useful against any opponent without padding, regardless of the other armor or if they were without armor. It just took a pause because, well, for some time there weren’t so many people with armor running around on the battlefield, wich couldn’t be taken care of with a more versatile axe. (On and off the battlefield.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendra_panoply
Or think of Roman-style hooped armor or hoplite clamshell-type cuirass.
Or even back to Egypt where maces and socket axes were adopted shortly after helmets for the troops.

Morning stars had proper SPIKEY spikes, generally—meant to PIERCE armor, flesh and bone like a nail being driven by a hammer. Frigg’s weapon has spikes so large and broad that I’d say that pushes it back into the class of a knobbed mace, a precursor to the flanged mace—focusing, but still generally delivering CRUSHING force. And if you google knobbed mace, you’ll find plenty of images of an instrument covered in large, if relatively blunt, spikes.

I’ve often thought that, if I ever got to make a sword-and-sorcery movie, I’d make sure there’s a character who’s a master with flails, who can do things like disarm opponents, trip them, etc., by entangling them with a flail. (GURPS rules had it that attacks with flails cannot be parried, for instance.)

A war hammer has a definite ‘front’ to the head. You have to pay attention to whether you’re hitting the other poor, dumb bastard with one of the flat sides of the head and not the rounded ones. The advantage of a mace is that regardless of the handle orientation, you’re gonna cave his skull in.

One possible advantage on warhammers is that some come with a spike on the top, for piercing and puncturing and/or a hook on the back, for pulling away shields and tearing stabs. Versatility can often be a gamechanger.

Always preferred blunt weapons (maces, hammers, staves, fighting batons), doesn’t matter if the opponent is armoured or not, they are going to get smushed (specially if they are wearing a full helmet: ever played “Bellringer of Notre Damn!!” with a younger sibling/relative, a metal pot and a wooden spoon?)

Why not just fill it with acid?
Now that’s a weapon! Considering that acid burns are normally survivable, it would probably qualify as a less-lethal weapon (there’s no such thing as a non-lethal weapon), although a very sadistic one.
Might melt the can though. There’s always a downside.

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